Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1882 — A Good Provider. [ARTICLE]

A Good Provider.

We sometimes hear a husband spoken of in an admiring way as being 1 * a good provider.” And pray why should he not, be so? And why should he be called generous any more than the member of! any other firm when he keeps the books, receipts the bills and divides the money? In case of the farming business, the share of the wife is so direct and unmistakable that it can hardly be evaded. If anything is earned by the farm, she does her distinct and important share of the earning. But it is not necessary that she should do even that to make her by all the rules of justice, an equal partner entitled to her full share of the financial proceeds, Married people generally divide labor equally ; the woman bears children; the man provides for them. Her task on the average is as hard as his; nay, a portion of it is so especially hard that it is distinguished from all others by the name of “labor.” If it does not earn money it is because it is not to be measured in money while it exists—nor replaced by money if lost. If a business man loses bis partner ie can obtain another; and a man, no doubt, may take a second wife, but he cannot procure for his children a second mother. Indeed it is a palpable insult to the whole relation of husband and wife when one compares it, even in a financial light, to that of business partners. Yet she enjoys none of the privileges of a member of the firm. The money made is not divided between the pair; the female partner must ask for her pittance. One of the very best wives and mothers I have ever known, whose husband was of a most generous disposition and denied her nothing, once said to me whenever her daughters should be married she should stipulate in their behalf with their husbands for a regular sum of motaey to be paid them at certain intervals for their expenditures. “ I suppose no man,” she said, “can possibly understand how a sensitive woman shrinks from asking for money. If I can prevent it, my daughters 6hall never have to ask for iL If they do their duty aa wives and mothers they have a right to their share of the joint income within reasonable limits; for certainly no money could buy the services they render.”